216: How to Sell 1 Million Books in 24 Hours [A Gary Vee and NFT Case Study]

On August 27th, 2021 at 5pm EST (that's 1pm my time in Cali), Gary Vaynerchuk went live on YouTube and Instagram (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcsdCsBR3U) to announce a 24-hour only opportunity to his millions of fans and followers...involving NFTs in exchange for book purchases.

By the following day, his new book Twelve and a Half: Leveraging the Emotional Ingredients Necessary for Business Success was the #1 bestselling book across all of Amazon around the world (while on presale). It sold so many that Barnes & Noble broke for a lot of us trying to buy.

As I record this in mid-September, the book is no longer #1 in all of Amazon, that's how the rankings work -- they change almost hourly -- but there is a lot we authors can learn from what Gary did to write and promote his book.

But let me backup and define a few things for you…

Who is Gary Vee?

Gary Vaynerchuk is a Belarusian-American entrepreneur, author, speaker, and Internet personality. He is a co-founder of the restaurant reservation software company Resy and Empathy Wines. First known as a wine critic who expanded his family's wine business, Vaynerchuk is now more known for his work in digital marketing and social media as the chairman of New York-based communications company VaynerX, and as CEO of VaynerX subsidiary VaynerMedia.

NFT: Non-fungible token

You may have heard this term floated around a lot lately. It's all the rage in the cryptosphere. Skeptics call it "buying jpegs. My in-laws call it a ponzi scheme.

But what it really is is a digital collectible tied to a smart contract that cannot be destroyed.

Who created it?Who bought it first (called minting)?Who sold it and when?What price did the 3rd owner pay?

All this and more is recorded on the blockchain, which is a digital ledger of transactions recorded on multiple computers around the world so that no one person or entity can alter the records.

Oh, and non-fungible is just a confusing way of saying unique. If you trade 1 US dollar for another 1 US dollar, you have not changed anything. Dollars are fungible. If you trade 1 cryptopunk for 1 curiocard, you have very much changed things. These are non-fungible...they are unique.

It's all a big deal. It's the wave of the future, if you ask me.

If this is your first time hearing about it, I really think you should put in some hours to research and learn more.

It will (and already is) affecting everything we do in life. Don't be an old fuddy duddy and say it's all just a silly trend kids these days are into. It's not.

NFT examples

To help, for this convo, to make what an NFT is more clear, let's look at a few examples. 

1. Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC): 

Are pieces of digital art of apes with different facial expressions, backgrounds, and accessories. The cheapest one as I record this is 33.5 ETH, or about $117,000.

There is no utility -- or ability to use the token -- that I am aware of. However, owners of BAYC tokens get 'airdropped' (aka rewarded with) additional tokens that also have value because they are in demand by the market.

2. NFT.NYC

The leading conference on the topic of NFTs is held each year in New York City, and, as we would expect, the ticket to get in is an NFT. Usin